Machine for opening and working fibrous materials



(NO Model.) 5 sheetwsheet 1.

.A. A. COBURN. MACHINE FOR OPENING AND WORKING FIBROUS MATERIALS.

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(No Model.) 5 Sheets-Sheet 2.

A. A. GOBURN. MACHINE FOR OPENING AND WORKING FIBROUS MATERIALS.

No. 598,284. Patented Feb. 1, 1898.

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5 Sheets-Sheet 3.

(No Model.)

A. A. OOBURN. MACHINE FOR OPENING AND WORKING FIBROUS MATERIALS. No. 598,284.

Patented Feb. 1, 1898.

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(No Model.) 5 SheetsSheet 4.

A. A. COBURN.

MACHINE FOR OPENING AND WORKING I'IBROUS MATERIALS.

Patented Feb. 1, 1898.

WITNESSES.

INVENTOR Waq ATTORNEY- (No Model.) v v s ShGets -Sheet 5. A. A. OOBURN. MAUHINE FOR OPENING AND WORKING FIBROUS MATERIALS.

Patented Feb. 1, 1898.

WITNESSES.

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ATnN'r ALONZO A. COBURN, OF- LOWELL, MASSACHUSETTS.

SPECIFICATION forming part of Letters Patent No. 598,284, dated February 1, 1898 Application filed September 22, 1897. Serial No. 652,647. (No model.)

T0 00% whom it may concern.-

Be it known that I, ALONZO A. GoBURN, a citizen of the United States, residing at Lowell, in the county of Middlesex and Commonwealth of Massachusetts, have invented a certain new and useful Improvement in Machines for Opening and Working Fibrous Materials, of which the following is a specification.

My invention relates to machines for opening and working fibrous materials, as openers, lappers, carding-engines, &c., in which the stock is carried to the feed-rolls between yielding evener-plates and a fluted evenerroll by the rotation of said fluted roll. Said stock is fed between such evener-roll and evener-plates in the form of laps or sheets of fiber, usually two or more laps being placed one upon another to form a compound lap, so that if the friction of the plates upon one face of a single or compound lap is too great (owing to any roughness of the plates or to electrical attraction of the fibers by the plates) the other face of the stock will travel faster than the bottom thereof and said stock will be crimped or rolled into irregular masses, rendering the evening devices useless.

The object of this invention is to feed the layer of stock while between the evener-roll and the evener-plates so that both faces of said layer shall travel at the same speed.

To this end I use certain feed-wheels having their centers of rotation on the opposite side of the plates from the evener-roll, the curved surfaces of said wheels projecting through said plates and being adapted to engage fibers passing between said evener-roll and said plates andsaid wheels having substantially the same surface speed as that of said ovener-roll.

In the accompanying drawings on five sheets, Figure 1 is a left side elevation of a cotton opener and lapper, showing such parts of the frame, driving mechanism, and evening devices as are necessary to the explanation of the invention; Fig. 2, an enlarged right side elevation of the same with the sprocket wheels and chain by which a c0un-, tor-shaft is driven to rotate the feed-wheels;

Fig. 3, a vertical longitudinal section of a part of the feed-apron, feed-rolls, evening de vices, and my improvement on the line 3 3 in Fig. 4:; Fig. 4, a plan of the parts shown in Fig. 3, a part of the feed-apron being broken away; Fig. 5, a vertical transverse section on the line 5 5 in Fig. 3; Fig. 6, a similar section showing a modification of what is shown in Fig. 5; Fig. 7, a vertical section on the line 7 7 in Fig. 6 of the evener-roll, also show* ing a feed-wheel and its supporting-lever in side elevation Fig. 8, a front elevation,part1y in vertical central section, of two of the feed: wheels shown in Fig. 6 connected by links; Fig. 9, a right side elevation similar to Fig. 2, but omitting the sprocket wheels and chain and showing a modification of the means of driving the feed-wheels; Fig. 10, a plan of the feed-rolls, evener-roll, evener-plates, and feed-wheels with the means of driving the feed-wheels shown in Fig. 9, Figs. 11, 12, and 13 representing modifications, Fig. 11 a front elevation, partly in vertical section, on the line 11 11 in Fig. 13, Fig. 12 a plan of the evener-plates and feed-wheels shownin Fig. 11, and Fig. 13 a side elevation of an evener plate and feed-wheel and a vertical section of the feed-rolls and evener-roll on the line 13 13 in Fig. 11.

The frame A, apron sides a a, feed-apron B, rear apron-roll b, evener-roll C, evenerplates D, having extensions (1, each of which is connected through a system of scale-levers in the usual manner to a shipperlever E, which moves the belt F up or down upon the cones G G to vary the relative speed of said cones and therefore the speed of the feed-rolls H H, according to the average thickness of the sheet of fibers at any time passing between the evener-roll and evener-plates. All these parts are of the usual construction and operation except as hereinafter stated.

It will be understood by those skilled in the art to which this invention relates that the power to drive the machine is applied by a belt (not shown) to a pulley 2', fast on the beater-shaft I; that a belt from another pulley i, also fast on said beater-shaft, drives a pulley K and through the bevel-gear it, fast on said pulley K, the bevel-gears Z Z, fast on the side shaft L, and another bevel-gear 9, fast on the shaft of the driving-cone G, drives said cone G; that a worm g on the shaft of the driven cone G drives the worm-wheel 0, fast on the evenerroll (1, Figs. 1 and 2; that the feed-rolls H II are connected to each other by gears h h, Figs. 2 and i; that another gear h fast on the feed-roll H, is driven by a gear 0' on the evener-roll O, and that another gear 0 fast on the evener-roll, engages a gear b on the shaft b of the rear apron-roll b.

To prevent the lap or sheet of stock from adhering to the evener-plates, I arrange a shaft P transversely of the machine below and parallel with said evener-plates, supporting said shaft P in the rear forked ends of two equal parallel levers J, pivoted at j on the inner faces of the opposite sides of the frame, the front arms j of said levers carrying weights J, adjustable on said front arms by means of notches 7' in said front arms, and on said shaft P, I secure feed-wheels p, the curved faces 13 of which are roughened or preferably fluted at p to correspond with the fluted surface of the evener-roll. The feedwheel shaft P is provided near its ends with sprocket-wheels 13 19 fast thereon, and connected by sprocket chains Q Q to other sprocket-wheels m m, fast on a counter-shaft M, journaled in the frame A of the machine parallel with the evener-roll G. On one end of the counter-shaft M is another sprocket- 1 wheel 0%, connected by a chain N toa sprocketwheel 0, fast on the shaft 19 of the rear-apronroll I). The numbers of teeth in the sprocketwheels 19 19 m, m, m, and O are such as to give to the feed-wheels a surface speed su bj stantially equal to the surface speed of the evener-roll.

The feed wheels 19 project through the evener-plates D, which are cut away at d for that purpose, to or nearly to the evener-roll when there is no stock in the machine.

When the stock is passing between the evener-roll and the evener-plates, the latter are depressed in the usual manner andiallow the roughened, toothed, 0r fluted surfaces of the feed-wheels to engage the fibers and carry the surface of the lap farthest from the evenerroll at the same speed as the surface speed of said lap nearest to said evener-roll and thus prevent the crimping or rolling of the fibers on each other and the matting of the fibers between the evener-roll and evener-plates'.

The slight movement of the feed-wheels toward and from the evener-roll, due to the varying thickness of the sheet of stock between said wheels and evener-roll, does not affect the position of the belt F on the cones G G, nor

the speed of the evener-roll and feed-rolls,

which is controlled, as heretofore, entirely by the position and movement of the evenerplates.

In Figs. 6, 7, and 8 the feed-wheels (which are like the feed-wheelsp, Figs. 1 to-5, except as hereinafter stated)are represented assupported independently of each other to allow each feed-wheel to exert substantially the same pressure upon the stock between such feed-roll and the evener-roll.

In the figures last named each feed-wheel p is represented as provided with hubs 19 which rest in suitable bearings upon the forked rear end of a lever J which turns upon a horizontal fulcrum-shaft 7' and may be weighted, having for that purpose notches j and being like the lever J, except as above stated, the intervals between the levers J on the shaft j being maintained by collars 7' secured in place by set-screws or any usual means.

The feed-wheels in Figs. 6 to 8 are represented as connected by links j, provided with enlarged ball-shaped ends 7' having diametrical slots 9' the slots in opposite ends of the same link being at right angles to each other and the ends 9' entering the hollow hubs p of adjacent feed-wheels p, which are caused to rotate with said links by pins 19 which pass diametrically through said hubs p and slots 9' in such a manner as to allow said feedwheels independently of each other a slight movement toward and from the evener-roll. The outer hubs of the feed-wheels p at the ends of the series of feed-wheels are provided with sprocket-wheels p p of the same con- 1 struction and operation as those shown in {Figs 1 to 5.

The movement of the sprocket-wheels 10 19 away from the evener-roll in eitherof the constructions above described isso slight as not v to disengage the sprocket-chains from the 5 wheels connected by them.

In Figs. 9 and 10 the connection between the evener-roll O and the feed-wheel shaft P is made directly by expansion-gears or longtoothed gears c p on said roll and shaft,- respectively, which permit of a sufficientvariation of the distance between the centers of 5 said roll and shaft without disengagement of said gears c 19 In Figs. 11,12, and 13 the feed-wheels p are represented as fluted cylinders of greater length than: the feed-wheels in the other figures and as being journaled in brackets d cast with or otherwise secured to the under faces of the evener-plates.

The-hubs are connected by links, as in Figs. 6, 'Z, and 8', and are driven in the same manner, the other parts shown in Figs. 11, 12, and

E 13: being like the parts having similar letters of reference in the other figures.

I claim as my invention 1. The combination of a rotary evener-roll, 1 evener -plates, wheels, having peripheries 1 adapted to engage fibers passing between said plates and roll, said wheels having their axes on the opposite side of the operativesurfaces of said plates from said evener roll and extending through said plates, and means of rotating said wheels atsubstantiall'y the same surface speed as that of said: roll.

2. The combination of a rotary evener-roll, I evener plates, wheels, having peripheries 5 adapted to engage fibers passing between said plates and roll, said wheels having their axes on the opposite side of said plates from said j evener-roll and extending through-said plates,

and means intermediate said evener-roll and said Wheels, for rotating said wheels at substantially the same surface speed as that of said roll.

3. The combination of a rotary evener-roll, evener-plates, feed-wheels, links, arranged in the intervals between adjacent Wheels and jointed to the hubs of said wheels to cause said wheels to rotate each with the same speed as the others and to permit said wheels to be moved independently of each other toward and away from said evener-roll, and means for rotating said feed-wheels at substantially the same surface speed as that of said evenerroll.

l. The combination of a rotary evener-roll, evener-plates, feed-wheels, forked levers, each supporting the hubs of one of said wheels, links, arranged in the intervals between adjacent wheels and jointed to the hubs of said wheels to cause said wheels to rotate each with the same speed as the others and to permit said wheels to be moved independently of each other toward and away from said evenerroll, and means for rotating said feed-wheels at substantially the same surface speed as that of said evener-roll.

5. The combination of a rotary evener-roll, evenerplates, feed -wheels, having hubs, forked levers, each supporting the hubs of one of said wheels, links, arranged in the intervals between adjacent wheels and jointed to the hubs of said wheels to cause said wheels to rotate each with the same speed as the others and to permit said wheels to be moved independently of each other toward and away from said evener-roll, and gears, secured on the ends of said evener-roll, and other gears, secured to the outer hubs of the wheels at the end of said series of wheels, and engaging said first-named gears to rotate said feedwheels by the rotation of said evener-roll.

6. The combination with the feed-rolls and feed-apron of an evener-roll, evener-plates, feed-wheels, having their centers on the opposite side of said plates from said evener roll, said feed-wheels having curved surfaces adapted to engage fibers passing between. said evener-roll and said evener-plate, and said feed-wheels extending through said evener,

plates, and means of rotating said feed-wheels at substantially the same surface speed as that of said evener-roll, said evener-roll, evenerplates and feed-wheels being all arranged between said feed-rolls and feed-aprons.

In witness whereof I have signed this specification, in the presence of two attesting witnesses,this 10th day of September, A. D. 1897.

ALONZO A. COBURN.

Witnesses: ALBERT M. MOORE, GRAoE E. HIBBERT. 

